


Dear Santa

by Kangofu_CB



Category: The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Except when she's being a shit, Gift Exchange, Gift Fic, Letters to Santa, M/M, Natasha Romanov Is a Good Bro, Original twink Bucky Barnes, Winterhawk Fic Exchange, grows up to be a Bucky BEAR, winterhawk - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-28
Updated: 2018-12-28
Packaged: 2019-09-29 00:34:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,092
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17193149
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kangofu_CB/pseuds/Kangofu_CB
Summary: When Clint goaded Natasha into writing a "Dear Santa" letter way back when they first got partnered together, he never dreamed it would come back to haunt him.Or that Bucky Barnes would come back at all.





	Dear Santa

**Author's Note:**

  * For [hopespym](https://archiveofourown.org/users/hopespym/gifts).



> For Hopespym, who asked for "fluff, angst with a happy ending, any type of au  
> Do not wants: major character death, poly relationship, unhappy ending"
> 
> I, uh, I got the fluff part? And no one died? And there's an implied happy ending O.o
> 
> Seriously though, I hope that you enjoy this, I thought it was cute and I had fun writing it!

**_Unknown safe house in Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of Congo, December 20, 2003_ **

 

“It’s easy,” Clint said, reclining back in the shabby chair.  “You just write ‘Dear Santa,’ and then you list off whatever you want for Christmas.”

 

Natasha stared at him from under her pinched brow, not at all convinced.  

 

They’d been in the safe house for hours already, waiting on the possible pursuit to lose interest, waiting on safe extraction, and they’d long ago run out of traditional means of passing the time.  Well, traditional means that did not include removing any clothing, which was their unspoken agreement. Neither of them had packed anything for entertainment during what was supposed to be an easy recon mission that had instead turned into a firefight slash escape route, and the house didn’t have much to offer.  There was no cable TV, no internet connection, and the only means of outside communication was the S.H.I.E.L.D satellite phone they’d been gifted by Coulson. Clint had dug up a pack of cards - missing the two of clubs and the Queen of Hearts, ironically - and they’d both cheated to a stalemate at every card game they both knew and a few they’d taught each other, and Clint was irrepressibly bored. 

 

“Wish Santa would bring my gifts early,” Clint had muttered, and Natasha had looked up sharply in question. “You know,” Clint said, “fat man, comes down the chimney, leaves wonders under the tree.”

 

Natasha looked around pointedly.  There was no tree, no trappings whatsoever of Christmas, and her look clearly indicated she had no positive feelings whatsoever on Santa. 

 

They’d only been working together for a few months, ever since Clint had forcefully recruited her from the Red Room and S.H.I.E.L.D had cleared her for field duty, and she had made it abundantly clear that she would work with Clint and only Clint. 

 

And it wasn’t like Clint had  _ ever _ believed in Santa.  As a small boy in a dysfunctional, alcoholic home with a father who regularly beat the shit out of everyone and a mother who drank herself into unconsciousness nightly, there wasn’t much room for miracles.  Then the circus had taught him that magic was tricks of light and sleight of hand.

 

Still. 

 

Natasha had had even less wonder as a child than Clint. 

 

“C’mon, he’s gotta owe you a few gifts,” Clint wheedled.  “You’re, what? Twenty? Nineteen? That’s two decades of presents you’ve got coming to you, you can ask him for  _ anything _ .”

 

She snorted.  “You want me to write a letter to an imaginary man for gifts that I won’t receive? Why would I do that?”

 

“For the childlike wonder?” Clint tried. 

 

She rolled her eyes, but produced a notebook and pen, obviously intending to humor him.  

 

Then she passed him a second pen and tore a page out of the book.  “I’ll write one if you write one.”

 

Clint heaved a sigh but accepted her offerings, hunkering down with them over the coffee table to think.

 

Truthfully, Clint hadn’t written a letter to Santa since he was six, when he asked for Hot Wheels and his mom to please stop drinking, but since he’d started this travesty he could at least pony up. 

 

_ Dear Santa _ , he wrote, and then stared at the blank piece of paper. 

 

“Not so easy, hmm?” Natasha said, having not even picked up her pen.  “Shall I ask for a pony or a doll, do you think?”

 

Clint rolled his eyes.  “Why not both?” he offered.

 

He tried to think of all the things he’d liked as a child, and came up mostly blank.  His childhood had been more about survival than wishful thinking, but he’d had a few things he’d been wistful for, other than safety and security. 

 

He smirked, thinking of his teenage years, of smuggled drinks and pretty girls and laughing  _ boys _ , and a collection of comic books he’d managed to mostly keep up with until shit had gone south with Trick. 

 

_ Please bring me Bucky Barnes for Christmas.  I swear I’ll be a good boy. Love, Clint _

 

Natasha laughed, low and smoky, when he presented her with the letter. “You’ve never been a good boy,” she pointed out, “and they don’t even make Bucky action figures anymore, though I think there might still be a market for the bears.”

 

“Oh no,” Clint said, aghast, “no Bucky action figures, whatever shall I do?  I’d prefer the real thing anyway.”

 

“He wore booty shorts,” she said, flatly.

 

Clint sighed, theatrically.  “Yeah,” he said, fond, “and what glorious booty shorts they were.  Bucky Barnes was the original twink.”

 

“Bucky Barnes was a  _ sniper _ ,” she reminded him.  “Wait, that explains the attraction.”

 

Clint snorted a laugh, and gestured at her paper.  “Well, what are you going to ask for?”

 

She hummed to herself for a moment, then made a neat list of all the weapon modifications she’d been begging S.H.I.E.L.D for for weeks.  At the end she paused.

 

_ I’d also like a pony, but I don’t promise to be a good girl.  I promise to try and do better. Xx N.R. _

 

Two hours later, their ride showed up, and Clint forgot all about the lists, until a Bucky Bear showed up in his quarters at S.H.I.E.L.D, unwrapped with no note on the morning of the twenty-fifth. 

  
  
  


**_Avengers Tower, New York City, New York, December 21, 2015_ **

 

“It’s easy,” Clint heard Natasha say, as he rounded the corner and walked down the hall towards the common area.  He desperately, desperately needed coffee. His nightmares were back with a vengeance, thanks to a recent influx of genetically engineered monsters that reminded him a little too strongly of the Chitauri, and a general pervasive sense of nervousness in the tower. 

 

Bucky Barnes had come back from the dead, stomped back into Steve Rogers’ life and upset the entire team, first by trying to kill them, and then by  _ not _ trying to kill them.  Instead he wandered around like a wounded animal with a resting murder face and pushed absolutely  _ all _ of Clint’s buttons.  

 

And not in the bad, I wanna shoot him with an arrow ways.

 

Oh no, in all the  _ Bucky Barnes was the original twink and grew up to be a Bucky  _ **_bear_ ** ways.

 

Clint wanted to climb Bucky Barnes like a tree.

 

He was pretty sure he’d get stabbed for his trouble. 

 

“You just write ‘Dear Santa,’ and then you list what you want for Christmas.” Natasha continued, and Clint paused in the hallway.

 

That sounded- disturbingly familiar, actually.  He dug around in his brain and scraped up memories of a tiny, dirty house in the middle of the DRC, and hours of waiting and forcing Nat to write that damn letter-

 

“I know how,” Bucky’s familiar drawl growled.

 

That growl did funny things to Clint’s insides, as did the Brooklyn drawl that was slowly coming back into his words and then Clint-

 

Clint suddenly remembered his  _ own _ letter to Santa, and felt something like terror grip him.  He double-timed it down the hallway, slowing just before he breached the doorway to the common area slash kitchen, and tried his best to look oh-so-casual on his way to the coffee pot.

 

The look that Natasha flicked his way was not fooled, nor was it impressed. 

 

This was not going to go well. 

 

“Mmm,” Nat said, sipping her own mug of weird Russian tea.  “Well then you’ll have less trouble than I did. I’ve been assured this is the first step in reclaiming your wretched childhood.”

 

“I didn’t have a wretched childhood,” Bucky snarked, rolling his eyes.  

 

God, the snark got Clint every damn time. 

 

“No, but I’m sure Santa owes you a few gifts.  Seventy years’ worth. Just write the letter Barnes, you’ll feel better.”

 

Clint couldn’t help the little smile that stole over his face.  From Nat, that was almost a tacit admission that Clint had been right, way back when, even though he’d just been making shit up on the fly.

 

Actually, that pretty much described his whole life.

 

The room was deeply silent for a few moments as Clint made his coffee and Bucky stubbornly  _ didn’t _ write his letter.

 

Nat sighed, and the hair on the back of Clint’s neck stood on end. 

 

It was time to beat a hasty retreat.

 

“James,” she said, all sly amusement and hidden agendas, “do you know what Clint asked Santa for when he was your age?”

 

“I’m ninety-eight goddamn years old,” Bucky grunted.  “Clint hasn’t asked for  _ shit _ at my age.”

 

“You’re not even thirty, accounting for cryofreezing and the serum,” she countered.

 

“Nat,” Clint said, a warning that went completely unheeded.  His fingers wrapped around the handle of one of Tony’s butter knives.  He’d tested the things for tensile strength and projectibility months ago, and he was fairly confident he could at least use one to defend himself temporarily if this went where he thought it was going. Which was probably with Clint bleeding out on the kitchen floor. 

 

Bucky blinked between the two of them, seeming to realize he was in the middle of some previous history.

 

From nowhere, Nat produced a grimy, folded up sheet of paper that had obviously seen many better days. 

 

“‘Dear Santa,’” she read, gleefully, and Clint felt the blood drain from his face.

 

She’d kept it, the goddamn traitor.  

 

“‘Please bring me Bucky Barnes for Christmas.  I swear I’ll be a good boy.’” she continued, and Clint mentally wrote her out of his will.  “‘Love, Clint.’”

 

Clint lunged across the bar, butter knife in hand and coffee forgotten, to try and grab the letter.  Natasha danced out of his reach, laughing, as Clint skittered across the tile floors and did his damndest to reclaim what was rapidly becoming the most embarrassing moment of his life.  Funny how a letter to fucking  _ Santa _ was the thing he was most embarrassed by at the moment.  Ironic, even.

 

She stuffed the letter down the front of her shirt and Clint debated the merits of going after it. 

 

He might lose a few fingers, but then again, Bucky was probably going to murder him, and he didn’t want any evidence left behind.

 

Worth it, he decided, and lunged for her. 

 

Natasha, surprising even him, who’d sparred with her for years, stepped  _ into _ his attack, neatly tripped him up, and used her foot to cushion his head before it hit the tile. The knife landed with an ear-piercing clang a few feet away.  She sauntered out of the kitchen, leaving Clint gasping for air on the floor and Bucky staring at them like they were aliens.

 

“What,” Bucky said, very clearly, “the fuck.”

 

“It was a joke,” Clint tried, as he closed his eyes and prayed for a sudden, unexpected aneurysm.  “I wrote that like fifteen years ago. You were  _ dead _ .  You were a comic book character!”

 

“Somehow,” Bucky said, leaning over him, “that’s worse.  I’ve seen those comics and they’re awful.”

 

“But the shorts,” Clint whimpered.  

 

“Yeah,” Bucky said, “the shorts.  That’s a point. You know I never wore the shorts right?”

 

Clint opened his eyes again, and found Bucky staring down at him with bemusement.  He was also, Clint noticed, wearing a t-shirt so thin and worn that it was nearly translucent, and a pair of shorts that could only generously be called ‘appropriate’.

 

“I think you’re wearing the shorts  _ now _ ,” Clint said, cocking his head for a better view. 

 

“You’re an idiot,” Bucky said, taking the few short steps back to the counter to scribble something on the paper Natasha had given him.  He folded it up into a neat square and then walked over to drop it on Clint’s chest. 

 

Clint stared at him as he walked out of the room - actually, he sauntered almost the exact same way Natasha had, and it looked fucking  _ spectacular _ in the shorts.  After a few seconds of thoughtful contemplation over the fact that he was not only not dead, he wasn’t even a little bit stabbed, he picked the paper up and stared at it.  Figuring Bucky hadn’t had time to wire it for bombs, he unfolded it gingerly and held it up where he could still read it from his position on the floor.

 

_ Dear Santa _ it said, in Bucky’s scratchy, blocky penmanship.  

 

_ For Christmas I’d like a disaster archer.  Must love dogs. Should prefer the color purple.  I’ve been a bad boy, but I’m trying to be better. Love, Bucky Barnes. _

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to Clara, as always, for the beta read and the enabling.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Purple Cake Fluff](https://archiveofourown.org/works/17402537) by [Starla-Nell (Princess_Nell)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Princess_Nell/pseuds/Starla-Nell)




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